Read the following text about the famous athlete Jesse Owens and then answer the questions

on main
idea, details, and theme. You will also need to analyze dialogue to determine aspects of character
(basically, what does the dialogue tell you about character).
JESSE OWENS
When one reads about the life of Olympic track and field champion Jesse Owens, one cannot but be
astonished and inspired by some of the events that took place and how he overcame many obstacles to
pursue his dreams. Born in 1913 in Oakville, Alabama, Owens was often sick as a child. When he was
aged five, a large bump developed on his chest and it began causing him serious pain as it pushed against
his lungs. As his family could not afford medical care, his mother performed surgery on Owens while he
bit down hard on a leather strap. His mother cut out the golf-ball sized lump from his chest and Owens
lost a significant amount of blood, but he survived. Despite his frail health, he was still expected to work
as early as the age of seven, and he would pick up to 100 pounds of cotton a day to help his family of
sharecroppers.
The grandson of enslaved people, Owens smashed records for the Ohio State University track team and
earned the nickname 'Buckeye Bullet'; however, Owens was barred from living in the on-campus
dormitory because of the color of his skin, though he was the first black man elected captain of an Ohio
State varsity team. At the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin, Germany, Jesse Owens foiled Adolf Hitler's
plans to showcase the Nazi ideology of Aryan racial supremacy by winning four of the USA's 11 gold
medals, and broke two Olympic world records. Although Owens helped the USA to victory at the games,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt snubbed Owens and did not meet with him to offer his congratulations,
as was the tradition for champions upon their return home. In fact, Owens' accomplishments were not
even acknowledged by the president, which disappointed Owens. “Hitler didn’t snub me—it was our
president who snubbed me,” he said months after the Games. “The president didn’t even send me a
telegram.” Owens had to wait until 1976, when President Gerald Ford awarded him the Presidential
Medal of Freedom, to be properly recognized. The mild-mannered Owens seemed not the least bit
surprised by his home country's hypocrisy. "When I came back to my native country, after all the stories
about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus," he said. "I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live
where I wanted. I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to
shake hands with the president, either."
One person who had not snubbed Owens, though, was German shoemaker Adolf “Adi” Dassler. He was
launching his humble athletic shoe business and successfully lobbied not only German athletes, but
Owens as well, to wear his personally handcrafted leather track shoes with extra-long spikes. Jesse
Owens' triumph helped to launch Dassler's business, and a decade later the German would start his own
company— Adidas.
Even though he was the hero of the Olympics, when he returned home to the United States, Owens
struggled to make money which led to his participation in stunt races against dogs, motorcycles and even
horses. “People said it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse,” Owens said, “but
what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can’t eat four gold medals.”
Four years after Owens died, in 1984, a street outside Berlin’s Olympic Stadium was rechristened Jesse-
Owens-Allee in his memory. Owens once said: “We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come
into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort” - and when one
looks back at the iconic athlete’s life, it is easy to see the impression he made.